(11/20/07 5:00am)
The new long-player from Finnish Death-Thrash group Amoral (that's Death Metal played at Thrash tempos, for the uninitiated), Reptile Ride, has some dangerously high expectations to live up to. I caught wind of Amoral a few years ago when they hit the road with one of my all-time favorites, Amon Amarth. Picking up their then-well-received album Decrowning, I was intrigued by their blend of brutal, technical Death-Thrash and melodic hooks. However, the album had one flaw: The first track, "Showdown," gut-punched the rest of the songs-hard. So impressed was I that the rest of the album could do little to hold my attention, and it soon fell out of rotation entirely. I hadn't heard so much as a peep from the Amoral camp until this summer, when a new song, "Mute," popped up on their Web site. Long story short: I became heavily addicted to its righteous rocking opening riffs and sublime solos.Now, with most labels looking for the next Metalcore or Post-rock heavyweight, Reptile Ride has been criminally ignored, making it very difficult to track down on these shores. It's been a long, grim wait for my German import copy (It's November, people), but now I sit with an uncontrollable nosebleed, a case of whiplash and an enormous grin on my face. However, this Ride comes at a price.I have to admit, I was disappointed at first. Picking "Leave Your Dead Behind" to open the album was a poor choice. Standard syncopated riffs and some bland vocals had me worried that "Mute" would be this album's "Showdown." Yet track two, "Nervasion," picks up the ball and streaks down the field for a touchdown. With a soaring, almost heart-lifting rhythm and melody and catchy solos, "Nervasion" puts on display all that is good and Metallic about Amoral's new, slightly more rock-based approach. The track also boasts the band's new affinity for skillful stop-start rhythm riff interludes, for which guitarists Ben Varon and Silver Ots should both receive Grammys.In fact, it's worth mentioning at this point that Varon and Ots practically make this record shine on their own. Their soloing is highly skilled, showcasing a painfully addictive blend of rock 'n' roll wail and Death Metal shred. Listen to the three-minute mark of "Mute" if you don't believe me.That's not to say that the rest of the band is a group of ne'er-do-well slackers. Vocalist Niko KalliojNrvi, though limited in range, displays an excellent sense of phrasing that's ear-catching in its own right. Check out the chorus of "D-Drop Bop" to see how his roars can get your head banging. Likewise, Juhana Karlsson is more than capable behind the bongos, pulling many a catchy pattern out of his hat.The album continues its gold streak through "Hang Me High," "Mute" and "Few and Far Between," a track that explores some new territory for the band as they take their foot off the gas for the first time in three albums, allowing for some slower, heaving rhythms to break the surface of the torrent.Unfortunately, the album begins to falter after that and the confidence that's so prevalent in the first five tracks begins to fade. "Snake Skin Saddle" loses me the way "Decrowning" did, with some uninspired (by Amoral standards) riffing and grating, monotonous vocals. "D-Drop Bop" saves the album's latter half, delivering Reptile Ride's last slam dunk, but the final two tracks, "Apocalyptic Sci-fi Fun" and "Pusher," fail to give the album the explosive end it deserves. The former is an instrumental track, but comes across more as a mediocre song that they were too lazy to write the lyrics for. "Pusher," though not a terrible track, is a poor choice for the cleanup spot, spending too much time building a mid-paced stomp and going nowhere in the end.Ultimately, despite some truly brilliant tracks, Amoral is still a young band by Metal standards (though they formed in as youngsters in 1997, they've only since released three albums), and it shows here. The spotty pacing, combined with a wide range of disparity between the "hits" and the "filler" songwriting, the album is just a little too rocky to be labeled the classic I wanted it to be. But is Reptile Ride still worth the price of admission? I still think so. I had high, perhaps unrealistic expectations for this album, and the fact that the band even comes close to fulfilling them speaks volumes about its quality and potential.
(10/16/07 4:00am)
To the Editor:When criticizing Greek life on campus, a singular point is raised again and again: that a fraternity or sorority is inherently against the character of Brandeis, as our university was founded upon the belief that one should refuse to abide by discrimination based upon creed, color, religion or heritage ("Admin orders ZBT to stop using 'Brandeis' in name," Oct. 9 issue). Zeta Beta Tau traces its origins to the very same ideals; it was created so that Jewish men would have an organization to call their own in the university culture.In 1954, ZBT led the nation in becoming the first Greek organization to eliminate all sectarian and racial limits on membership. It truly entered into its own as a group dedicated to the betterment of its members and the world as a whole. In fact, ZBT itself comes from the Hebrew Zion Bemishpat Tipadeh, which means "Zion shall be redeemed through justice." Its credo highlights four pillars: intellectual awareness, social responsibility, integrity, and brotherly love. These are the foundations upon which ZBT brothers are to build their character, and you would be hardpressed to find criticism of those as personal guidelines. In fact, you would be hard pressed to differentiate those from the goals of Brandeis as an institution.Judging members of an organization based upon slipshod stereotypes is the type of cognitive laziness that a liberal arts education, especially one from a university of Brandeis' caliber, is supposed to exterminate. In Matthew 7:20, it's stated, "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." All that is being asked by the brothers of ZBT is that you allow us to be judged by our actions, that our philanthropy, our campus involvement and our academic dedication, our club leadership, our personal character be the fruits by which you judge, not a hazy image from Animal House.Discrimination against people due to skin color, religion and personal heritage is one of the worst sins one can commit, and I am proud to attend a university that asks us to shine the light of truth to blot out the darkness of those transgressions. It is because of my respect for those ideals and my unending attempts to live by them that I can loudly proclaim that I am proud to be a Zeeb.-Elliott Flah '08The writer is a member of Zeta Beta Tau.
(10/02/07 4:00am)
I was in the land where everything is appropriately named. I had driven out of Boise, Idaho, past eponymous rivers, mountains and forests. The Burnt Pine Deli sat beside a grove of charred evergreens. Near the Salmon River (formerly filled with glistening pink flesh) I boarded a seven-seater airplane (Salmon Air) and flew between the jagged peaks of the Sawtooth Mountains. I was headed to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, the largest wilderness area in the lower 48 states. It was in this ominously named section of the river, beside a large red bluff named "Red Bluff," that the "Red Bluff Fire" would send our entire group of rafters scurrying downriver for safety.When the Shashone-Bancock Indians-who used to inhabit this part of Idaho-had to flee from fire, it must have been easy for them. The Sho-Bans (or as the White Man called them, The Sheep Eater Indians), lived austere lifestyles and could probably have packed up their cave encampments and jumped into their wooden canoes in no time. The Sho-Bans had always rejected agricultural advice from settlers, and instead lived as hunter-gatherers, eating long-horned sheep and collecting bitterroots from the Bitterroot Mountains. The Sho-Bans were not a violent group, and without farms or a desire to fight roaming tribes, they tended to move around a lot. So, when lightning struck, and acres began to burn around them, their effortless mobility was key. It wasn't so easy for us.The Outdoor Adventure River Specialists [OARS] rafting company caters to a lot of old people. It could easily be renamed OARP. It also caters to a lot of lazy people -though the two are certainly not mutually exclusive. Oh, and let's not forget about the people on the OARS rafting trip who have never slept in a tent in their backyard, let alone in the biggest wilderness in the contiguous United States -for whom fire and panic are inextricable. These were the people who were lured into the wild by the promise of cooked steak and wild salmon at night, hot coffee and tea in the morning and scenic views by boat in the afternoon. These people had very different motivations than, say, Earl Parrott.Earl Parrott, or "The Hermit of Impassible Canyon," came out West thinking he was seeking gold, but realized soon after he arrived that what he really sought was solitude. Parrott, like many men before and after him, was enticed by the California Gold Rush. By the time he got to Idaho in 1900, he either loved it so much or was so tired of traveling that he decided to abandon his California dream for an Idaho one. He lived alone for 45 years atop Impassible Canyon along the Middle Fork, living off his garden, hunting and making Henry David Thoreau look like a complete pansy. He built ladders on the cliffs, traded with travelers for salt, panned for gold in the river and carried a pistol with him at all times in case an injury in the woods called for him to shoot himself in the head. He, too, would have been very disappointed with how the OARS customers handled the Red Bluff Fire.When our hairy river guide came running down the hiking path just before dinner was ready, it became very clear that we wouldn't be eating for quite some time. In so many words, he told us that the fire-reported two days earlier that it was covering only about one square acre-was growing fast and coming right for us. Our guide had been a firefighter, and all the other guides had at least read Young Men and Fire, so their slight panic created instant chaos on the campsite. We didn't know it then, but that fire would grow to more than 16,000 acres and shut down the Middle Fork for two weeks. Other rafting trips would not be allowed to launch, but we would have to keep going.The youthfully challenged struggled to pack their belongings-sleeping bags, medication, etc. Three middle-aged brothers kicked up sand trying to find their elderly father's glasses. A Minnesota man-whose ever-present grin and ultra-nice-guy mannerisms led me to believe he was a serial killer-escorted his female friend whom he had recently met on the Internet to the rafts. A woman with a nearly definite masculine past and her cousin-who looked like a female version of Walter Matthau-disregarded the guide's orders and sat on the boats waiting for everyone else to pack up camp. (Incidentally, they only gave the crew a 4 percent tip at the end of the trip.) Mothers screamed at their young-adult children as we stood in the water watching the oncoming blaze. We were close enough that we could see trees crowning-when their branches seem to burst into flames-but still far enough that the roar didn't reach our ears. Without fire, this part of the Salmon River would look very different. In high-desert regions such as this, fire is crucial to the health of the landscape. First of all, fire rids the forest of any weeds that would take away scarce nutrients and rain water from the pines and sage plants. But fire does more than just clear the way for plant life; in some cases it creates it. Ponderosa Pines, whose layers of puzzle-piece bark are fire-resistant and give off a vanilla aroma, can only exist because of fire. Only the extreme heat of a forest fire will cause the seeds of the tree to crack open and germinate, in a process called "scarification." Fire is often thought of as the ultimate destroyer, but here, it gives birth to thousands of trees. The beauty and the unique landscape are part of the reason why this area has been designated "wilderness" by the U.S. government. In 1964 Congress decided, in an effort to preserve some of the nation's precious wildlife, it could designate certain areas as "wilderness." This self-conscious effort to preserve the natural state of the country is an uphill battle, and today, only about 2.6 percent of the continental United States has been designated wilderness. The preservation of the wild is perhaps no more important anywhere in the US as it is along rivers. Since the transition of the West from frontier to developed land, rivers have always taken the brunt of environmental erosion. Rivers were crucial to development and travel and therefore were the most heavily settled areas in the West. Without water, a town could not survive, and this is why all new developments-especially in the Southwest-required a river. It's why Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque and El Paso are all on rivers. It's also why there are no more salmon in the Salmon River, because of damming south of the middle fork. As we floated down the now-misnamed Salmon through the dimming and smoky evening light, the fire raging behind us, we came upon our new campsite. Apparently, we weren't the only raft group smoked out of its campsite, for here was a proverbial Hooverville of other rafters. "It's like Fort Laramie," my river guide told me. "With all the drinking and all.
(10/02/07 4:00am)
Boston must be a city full of Mountain Goats fans. During the band's performance of "Wild Sage" at Cambridge's Middle East Downstairs, the crowd at the sold-out club maintained a silence so pure that the sound of aluminum cans popping at the bar was clearly audible. Also perceptible were the whispered voices of my fellow concertgoers, who followed along dutifully with every word of the song from the band's melancholy and serene "Get Lonely." Singer John Darnielle's mock-tortured facial expressions and mannerisms were followed intently by all those around me, while Darnielle and bassist Peter Hughes shared knowing smiles throughout the set, basking in the audience's reverence like happy seals.The band, which just announced its upcoming album due in early 2008, consists of longtime fourtracker and former psychiatric nurse John Darnielle and his silent bassist, Peter Hughes. "[Darnielle is] a very inspiring person for me to have a dialogue with," said John Vanderslice, who co-produced the band's upcoming album, in an interview with the Justice. "I really was an old-school Mountain Goats fan. I'm still a pretty rabid fan of what he's done. J.D. and I have known each other since 1999."Though Sunday night's show in Northampton, Mass. was cancelled due to "grave family illness" (according to the band's Web site), the Mountain Goats gave an amazing live performance, as they are known to do. When a fan requested the audience favorite "Cubs in Five," Darnielle lectured the audience on his reasons for refusing to play the song, invoking the Boston Red Sox's recent conquest of the American League's Eastern Division title. Then, he and Hughes abruptly launched into the song, playing it through until the end. Fans craving the live-favorite "No Children," off the band's career-altering Southern gothic divorce drama album, Tallahassee, had to wait until the encore. During the song, Darnielle's voice was at times indiscernible over the audience's shouting voices, singing along. After a full set replete with mid-1990s releases, as well as a few tracks from the new album, Darnielle ended the night with a second encore, wherein he played "Shadow Song" from their 2000 album The Coroner's Gambit.The Mountain Goats' hand-picked opening act, the Bowerbirds, hail from Darnielle's adopted hometown of Durham, N.C. The trio's pretty but soporific music made it an excellent first act. The band's violinist and token female accordionist harmonized with lead singer Phil Moore, with striking effects. The airy, soft-stringed guitar (Oe la Iron and Wine) and lazy tempo of the Bowerbirds' songs made for a solid set. Most of the band's songs sounded like perfect album-ending tracks: folk-infused lullabies kept interesting with spare but creative instrumentation, but largely lacking memorable lyrics.Yet The Bowerbirds were no match for Bishop Allen, Vanderslice's opening band at the Middle East Upstairs last Friday night. Bishop Allen, named after a street only a couple of blocks from the venue, played highlights from their first two albums to a sold-out home-town crowd. The band began with "The Same Fire," from the June edition of their monthly EP series (released throughout 2006). The song is a response to the burning of the USS Monitor, a legendary Civil War battleship that the band had commemorated months before on a track from its March EP. The song's bouncy sing-along chorus instantly brought the audience to its feet as co-lead singer Justin Rice arched his eyebrows and tapped his feet clad in disheveled Vans sneakers. Other lead singer Christian Rudder held back, playing a collection of fun instruments, including ukulele and melodica. The band ended with "Flight 180," a track from its new album The Broken String, merging it into old favorite "Eve of Destruction," a reworked version of P.F. Sloan's classic 1965 Vietnam protest song made famous by Barry McGuire.The band's tour with Vanderslice, which began Sept. 17 in Orlando, comes hot on the heels of both the July release of his latest album, Emerald City, and Vanderslice's recent music blog tour, wherein the artist recorded performances of different songs and gave the videos to popular music blogs such as Chromewaves, You Ain't No Picasso and Stereogum. "I really like blogs, and I spend a lot of time on music blogs," Vanderslice said. "I wanted to pay back the blogs. [Blogs are] an efficient way to find out about music because they're always directly linking the content. [They're] run by only one person, so there's no editorial process."As is to be expected in Middle East Upstairs, the band's microphones became disconnected halfway through the show, which began with "Kookabura," off the new album. Just a couple of songs after inviting audience members onstage, the analog king stepped down into the crowd, away from the useless microphones to play "My Old Flame" and a new single, "White Dove," surrounded by concertgoers. The audio was eventually reset, but Vanderslice nonetheless ended the show with an acoustic performance of "Nikki Oh Nikki," from Vanderslice's 2002 album, Life and Death of an American Fourtracker. His violinist and drummer joined him in a small circle in the center of the tiny venue, as did the keyboardist, bringing with him a Fisher Price toy piano from the stage.Complete with panty-throwing and a short post-show dance party, Friday night's concert provided a heavy dose of adrenaline, standing in stark contrast to Sunday night's soothing transcendence which I had experienced along with the bulk of my fellow concertgoers. This reporter, as well as a number of local music lovers, eagerly awaits the promised return of these two headliners to the Boston area in the spring.
(09/11/07 4:00am)
It looks like the perennial disappointment Saturday Night Live will be receiving a public honor from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences this Saturday. The program's "digital short" (the series that produced internet favorite "Lazy Sunday") entitled "Dick in a Box" won an Emmy Award at the Creative Arts ceremony this past Saturday night. Says Andy Samberg, who co-starred in the video with Justin Timberlake, "I think it's safe to say that when we first set out to make this song, we were all thinking 'Emmy!'" The Creative Arts ceremony will be televised on the E! network. The full Primetime Emmy Awards show will air the next day.The 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, televised last Sunday, have been the source of much intrigue over the past few days. Rapper Kanye West was particularly surprised that Britney Spears was chosen to open the show: "I can't believe she would perform. She hasn't had a hit record in years." He went on to say, "Maybe my money's not right. Maybe my skin's not right," with regards to the fact that he was not chosen as the show's opener. The Foo Fighters singer (and, some will remember, Nirvana drummer) Dave Grohl said: "You know those things that you put batteries in, and they just vacuum the floor without anyone touching them? That's what I think of Britney Spears." The pop icon appeared "bleary and unprepared," according to one Associated Press writer. Many entertainment blogs remarked on the singer's faded lip-synching skills.According to an article in the New York Times, the awards show has seen falling ratings four years running, with a 28 percent fall last year. The move to Las Vegas' Palms Casino Resort (location of The Real World season 12, from which readers will remember itinerant reality star Trishelle Cannatella) is deemed to be an effort to revitalize the show and the network itself, which has previously been a much more prominent force in American culture.Another rapper, Ludacris, celebrated his 30th birthday at the Rio Hotel in Vegas this Friday. Celebrities such as Quincy Jones and Gabrielle Union attended his dinner, where video screens showed some of Luda's favorite movies (including Scarface and Friday), as well as his own movie, Crash.
(09/11/07 4:00am)
Many of us in the Pitchfork-reading community thumb our noses at "artistic" stage lighting effects. The light show and pyrotechnics aspects of rock concerts ran their course during the heyday of Aqua net and spandex. However, it's nice to see an indie band use the resources of a concert venue like Boston's Avalon to their advantage. Peter Bjirn and John's Friday night concert at the nightclub featured a bank of round, arena-like lights facing the audience as well as an appearance by the Avalon's starry wall (a phenomenon wherein the backdrop behind the stage is suddenly illuminated in tiny points of light). The lights, coupled with the band's likable demeanor and somewhat-cute hopping-motions around the stage elevated the show beyond a showcase of the band's timeless indie-pop songwriting aesthetic.The band took the stage to the sitar strains of their popular single, "Young Folks," with their backs to the audience under red lights. After more than a couple minutes in this position, the band sprang to life, playing a set with a traditional pop vibe, of timeless melodies that wouldn't be out of place in any decade of the pop canon. I confess; before Friday night's show, I'd only heard the single. Nonetheless, I was pleased to hear traces of L.A. '60s pop band The Association, of 1980s power-pop band Cheap Trick, of college-rock sweethearts Belle and Sebastian and of a number of other timeless bands in their catchy, rousing pop anthems. PB&J's songs ineffably bring to mind a whole host of pop elements from entirety of the pop canon.Concertgoers found themselves listening both to whistled passages and intense guitar shredding. The band also delivered some somewhat atypical songs during the encore, the first song of which sounded suspiciously like New Order's "Age of Consent," though this only served to make the song more awesome. During the song, which lasted several minutes, Peter jumped down into the crowd, microphone and shaker in hand, and mingled briefly before returning to the stage. The second and last song in the encore was a Buzzcock's cover, "Ever Fallen In Love?", a fast, punky song that the band pulled off effortlessly. Other standouts from the performance included, of course, "Young Folks," as well as "The Object of My Affection," which ended the set, and "Amsterdam," a song that prompted a cheer from the better part of the audience when announced.The Clientele opened the show with a mass of sweet, lazy pop songs reminiscent of 1960s pop rock. Think "Mr. Tambourine Man" (the Byrds' version, of course). Lead singer Alasdair MacLean's Donovan- and Bob Dylan-like vocals did nothing to dispel the '60s vibe. The band was upbeat with light electric guitars and a sweet-sounding xylophone on many songs, but never crossed the line to being too sugary.Perhaps more energy would have been appreciated: the band lost some people during an excessive mid-song jam halfway through their set (which one of my fellow concertgoers described as "Styx-like.") The band could also be criticized for the fact that their songs were difficult to distinguish. The performance was thus something of a long, sunny Avalon Popfest: peaceful, but not overly entertaining.As the Avalon is slated for destruction within the year (owner Patrick Lyons plans to tear down both Avalon and Axis, both Lansdowne Street nightclubs and concert venues), it's particularly refreshing to see a band that commands the stage and keeps the audience mostly interested and engaged throughout the show. Peter Bjirn and John may be one of the last bands I've see at the Avalon. Friday night's performance made me regret the future passing of the venue.
(09/11/07 4:00am)
Many of us in the Pitchfork-reading community thumb our noses at "artistic" stage lighting effects. The light show and pyrotechnics aspects of rock concerts ran their course during the heyday of Aqua net and spandex. However, it's nice to see an indie band use the resources of a concert venue like Boston's Avalon to their advantage. Peter Bjirn and John's Friday night concert at the nightclub featured a bank of round, arena-like lights facing the audience as well as an appearance by the Avalon's starry wall (a phenomenon wherein the backdrop behind the stage is suddenly illuminated in tiny points of light). The lights, coupled with the band's likable demeanor and somewhat-cute hopping-motions around the stage elevated the show beyond a showcase of the band's timeless indie-pop songwriting aesthetic.The band took the stage to the sitar strains of their popular single, "Young Folks," with their backs to the audience under red lights. After more than a couple minutes in this position, the band sprang to life, playing a set with a traditional pop vibe, of timeless melodies that wouldn't be out of place in any decade of the pop canon. I confess; before Friday night's show, I'd only heard the single. Nonetheless, I was pleased to hear traces of L.A. '60s pop band The Association, of 1980s power-pop band Cheap Trick, of college-rock sweethearts Belle and Sebastian and of a number of other timeless bands in their catchy, rousing pop anthems. PB&J's songs ineffably bring to mind a whole host of pop elements from entirety of the pop canon.Concertgoers found themselves listening both to whistled passages and intense guitar shredding. The band also delivered some somewhat atypical songs during the encore, the first song of which sounded suspiciously like New Order's "Age of Consent," though this only served to make the song more awesome. During the song, which lasted several minutes, Peter jumped down into the crowd, microphone and shaker in hand, and mingled briefly before returning to the stage. The second and last song in the encore was a Buzzcock's cover, "Ever Fallen In Love?", a fast, punky song that the band pulled off effortlessly. Other standouts from the performance included, of course, "Young Folks," as well as "The Object of My Affection," which ended the set, and "Amsterdam," a song that prompted a cheer from the better part of the audience when announced.The Clientele opened the show with a mass of sweet, lazy pop songs reminiscent of 1960s pop rock. Think "Mr. Tambourine Man" (the Byrds' version, of course). Lead singer Alasdair MacLean's Donovan- and Bob Dylan-like vocals did nothing to dispel the '60s vibe. The band was upbeat with light electric guitars and a sweet-sounding xylophone on many songs, but never crossed the line to being too sugary.Perhaps more energy would have been appreciated: the band lost some people during an excessive mid-song jam halfway through their set (which one of my fellow concertgoers described as "Styx-like.") The band could also be criticized for the fact that their songs were difficult to distinguish. The performance was thus something of a long, sunny Avalon Popfest: peaceful, but not overly entertaining.As the Avalon is slated for destruction within the year (owner Patrick Lyons plans to tear down both Avalon and Axis, both Lansdowne Street nightclubs and concert venues), it's particularly refreshing to see a band that commands the stage and keeps the audience mostly interested and engaged throughout the show. Peter Bjirn and John may be one of the last bands I've see at the Avalon. Friday night's performance made me regret the future passing of the venue.
(09/04/07 4:00am)
The trip to Lake Winnipesauke in New Hampshire was off to a bad start. Two of the five travelers were still sound asleep at 11 a.m., despite our previously planned departure time of 9 o'clock. But finally, after a much-needed trip to Dunkin' Donuts and several ATM stops, we were on the road for a day of sun-basking and craft-purchasing. We decided to take a voyage to this particular lake after one travel companion conducted an Internet search for New England events and came across this small-town craft fair. Our expectations for the journey were scant-we merely wanted to drive to a pre-determined destination and make the most of our last weekend of little work. Lake Winnipesauke, located in Alton Bay, N.H., is roughly two hours away from Brandeis. At 12:24, we were just passing Concord, Mass. Visions of wooden geese wearing bandanas and flags with inspirational sayings flew through our heads and hearts. The scan button on the radio had been engaged constantly since we had gotten into the car. By 1:40, the arguing over song choices had escalated into nearly unbearable screeches and aggressive dancing. Our spirits were dropping, and so was the needle in the gas gauge. The sounds of our grumbling stomachs were on the verge of settling any and all arguments about what to listen to. We decided to stop for lunch and gas in Gonic, N.H., at a place called Wild Willie's, which also has a location in Watertown. Having heard good things, I convinced the carload of day trippers to make the stop before we arrived at Lake Winnipesauke. Burgers were ordered all around and ranged from the original Wild Burger to the more daring Wicked Burger, which included caramelized onions. The burgers ranged from $5 to $7 and were of decent quality. The onion rings were phenomenal, but the raspberry-lime Rickey was overpriced at $3. It resembled a glass full of Robitussin, and, despite being "freshly squeezed," it burned my tongue with its artificial flavors. Signs advertising fake entities such as "U.S. Marshall Office" and "Big Horn Cattle Company" cluttered the walls alongside the likes of cowboy hats, cowbells and oversized wrought iron keys. Despite the stunning decor, all I could focus on was the hollowed, rotting brown lime floating in my much-anticipated bummer of a Rickey. Too many dollars and one unwanted serving of mayonnaise later, we were back in the car and on our way to water and crafts. About a half hour later, we passed a sign for the Lake. Cheers exploded throughout the car, and eventually we spotted the white tents of the craft fair. After a stressful search we found a parking spot and fell out of the car in a fit of groans and stretches. The first craft I saw immediately upon standing on the sidewalk was a pot full of ceramic mushrooms. The smell of clam strips wafted into my nose, and I cursed my decision to stop at Willie's. After a hard two days of reviewing new course syllabi, it was nice to lie out on the cement ledge above the lake and listen to the waves lap against the side. One young lad holding a terrifyingly large iguana in what appeared to be some sort of leather holster was attracting a crowd. Passers-by stopped to ask him questions, and he divulged that the lizard's name was Piko, which I initially mistook for Teacup, and that he likes to eat salad. After about 20 minutes of people- and lake-watching, we decided to drive to another spot on the lake to rest until it was time to go home. Already the cool breeze was starting to cause our teeth to chatter and our skin to prickle, but after driving for so long we were determined to stick it out. So we drove until we found a sign for Gilford Beach, where we split our time between swimming and preventing sand from invading our orifices. Not long after, we were back on the road heading home. This trip wasn't as much about the destination as it was about the drive. So the next time you're desperate to get off campus for a day or two and don't really care where to, find a random event taking place a couple hours away and just drive. You may end up finding a mildly lame craft fair. Lame or not, however, a day in the car with friends-arguing about music and playing unsuccessful games of you-say-an-actor-and-I'll-say-a-movie-he-was-in-and-you-say-another-actor-who-was-in-that- same-movie-fills any need for a change of scenery.
(05/01/07 4:00am)
The French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard coined the phrase, "All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl." While Hot Fuzz does pack plenty of heat, it proves that to be truly funny, you don't need a girl anywhere in sight. With Fuzz, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, the co-creators of 2004's Shaun of the Dead, have once again successfully translated British humor into classic American comedy. It's taken only two movies for Wright, the director, and Pegg, the co-author, to clearly establish their own signature style, full of clever and literate wordplay and void of the meaningless jokes synonymous with most American comedy. Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is the perfect cop, simply unmatched by anyone else in the London force. His flawless arrest record speaks for itself, perhaps a little too loudly, as Angel, by comparison, is making life quite difficult for other London cops. The solution, of course, is to send him to a place far away where the grass is green, the people are polite and there has not been a murder recorded in over 20 years. With a blue sky and a wooden sign reading "Sandford," Fuzz begins.Angel is quickly partnered with Danny (Nicholas Frost), the obviously incompetent son of the chief of police. The workload of the lovably chubby Danny, whose extensive knowledge on the subject comes solely from repeatedly watching DVDs of Bad Boys 2 and Point Break, is based mostly around pints of beer, ice cream cones and reading magazines in the squad car. When townsfolk start turning up dead at a seemingly alarming rate, like the rest of Sandford, Danny is quick to dismiss these events as mere accidents. Fuzz's brilliantly funny storyline begins when Angel, who can no longer live contently issuing traffic tickets all day, with the help of Danny begins to investigate and uncover these so-called "accidents."With only two lead roles and no love interest, Fuzz is based around the evolving relationship between Nicholas and Danny. Aimed as a satire on American cop movies, Fuzz brings out every possible funny situation between the efficiently boring, technical cop and his lazy incompetent partner. While American spoofs tend simply to unoriginally mock the intended movie or genre, Fuzz could almost pass for a legitimate action cop flick. Pegg and Wright work within-and respect-the style, but in doing so create a witty, funny semi-spoof on the guns-blasting, mystery-solving, buddy-love type of movie we've all seen time and time again. Fuzz has its touching moments, but rather than battling comedy with slow and serious scenes, it weaves both sentiment and character into its vast array of both silly and inspired jokes, exploiting clich without becoming one itself. It's both a slap and a hug to Hollywood. All in all, Hot Fuzz is a rare, well-done comedy, and will probably end up as the funniest movie released in 2007. Fuzz will keep you laughing long enough to forget the constant British accents, and is without a doubt well worth a trip to Waltham's Embassy Cinema.An odd fit for such an alternative theater, Fuzz is definitively a mainstream hit. Its mix of clever parody, ridiculous adults, movie references and hilariously unnecessary gruesome death scenes are reminiscent of a two hour-long episode of South Park, where anything is as believable as it is funny.
(03/06/07 5:00am)
B+Critics will tell you that somewhere between breaking up those sublime indie rockers Luna and marrying his sweetheart, Dean Wareham became the new Lee Hazlewood. Except Hazlewood-the cult songwriter who created "These Boots are Made for Walkin" and understood the difference between "country" and "Western"-isn't dead yet. He's just dying.While Wareham, the voice of Luna and the seminal Galaxie 500, has dropped his characteristic falsetto in favor of Hazlewood's gentle rasp, he doesn't quite channel the man on Back Numbers. Wareham recorded the disc with his wife and Luna bandmate Britta Phillips, and the result recalls Hazlewood's collaborations with Nancy Sinatra as much as the most amorous duets of Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley. Certainly, Back Numbers is inspired, but it captures none of the sophisticated zaniness of Hazlewood, who was diagnosed recently with renal cancer and given a year to live. Besides, Hazlewood recorded his own send-off last year with Cake or Death. He doesn't need one from Wareham and Phillips.Yet send him off they do with a cover of "You Turn My Head Around" and duets like "Say Goodnight," an obvious homage to the Hazlewood-Sinatra collaboration. But most of the originals here improve on Wareham's knack for decking even his sparsest tunes in dense, shimmering atmosphere. Here, that atmosphere means doo-wop vocals, lazy Rhodes piano and a casual lounge feel-a far cry from Galaxie 500's ebullient minimalism, but miles better than recent Luna releases-that doesn't oversweat its debt to idiosyncratic '60s pop.
(02/06/07 5:00am)
On Monday Jan. 29, I was hijacked. I stepped into the Senate office building ready to lobby my senator, Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), about ending the Iraq War as part of the nationwide lobbying day organized by the United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of political groups committed to ending the war. I was prepared to offer what I feel are practical ways for the Senate to stop the war from escalating. Alas, when I walked into Nelson's office, I discovered that some of my fellow lobbyers had their own agenda. They spent nearly half the meeting talking about the atrocities of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. One even went so far as to pull out a bottle of olive oil from Israel that was conspicuously wrapped with an image of Saddam Hussein and hand it to Nelson. Because of this tangental discussion, we didn't have enough time to discuss our points about Iraq. When we left, I felt like I hadn't accomplished anything. This struck me as a stark metaphor for one of the biggest problems we face on campus. This issue was made apparent most recently by the visits of Jimmy Carter and Alan Dershowitz, who discussed the barriers to peace in Israel. While I don't reject the Baker-Hamilton Report's contention that "the United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability" and strongly feel that America's lack of open criticism toward dubious actions by Israel damages our reputation in the region and the world, the reality is that soldiers and untold numbers of civilians are dying every day during our current occupation of Baghdad. As students in the United States, we can have a greater impact on ending the war in Iraq by raising our voices to our senators and representatives than on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a completely gridlocked and hopeless situation.Perhaps our desire to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has left us apathetic when it comes to dealing with the Iraq quagmire. Last semester, Brandeis' chapter of Democracy For America sponsored a signature drive against the Iraq War, but did little else to raise awarness and initiate anti-war advocacy efforts. And the drive was only during the bloodiest months yet, when the news reported downed choppers and hacked bodies daily. There was not a single march, rally or protest organized on campus in opposition to the war. Even factoring in online forums like Facebook.com, it was impossible to locate a single anti-war group started by Brandeis students or broadly supported in the Brandeis community. All over campus this week, one can find fliers that detail the radical history of our student body, from sit-ins to storming campus buildings. This does not, of course, imply that we have abandoned our legacy and become lazy. Rather, we're spending too much time arguing about a single line from page 213 of Carter's book and whether it constitutes anti-Semitism, and channeling too little energy and anger as a community toward combating the real injustices being perpetuated by our own government in Iraq. The prevalent Israeli-Palestinian discourse on this campus is dividing our community rather than turning us into a powerful movement that can take control and achieve something.Last Tuesday, after I returned from a several-hundred-thousand-person anti-war march in Washington, D.C., I attended a small peace vigil on campus sponsored by the Brandeis chaplaincy. Fewer than 30 people attended, but I felt as much energy resonating from this small crowd as I did from the thousands in the capital. For one moment, any semblance of the divisiveness that pervaded the campus during the past few weeks disappeared completely. There were no distractions of anti-Semitism or diversions on Israel as we all focused in a moment of silence on the troops lost in combat and the innocent civilians who have lost their lives. It was a small but beautiful start to what I hope will be a broader movement to bring our community together.
(01/23/07 5:00am)
Listening to the famous and controversial historian Howard Zinn talk about Vietnam War-era civil disobedience last Thursday, I started to reflect on the relative lack of anti-war activism among members of our generation. I first mused on the cultural stereotype of lazy and apathetic youth, but I realized that far from being complacent, our generation is taking action in new ways: cyber activism and digital disobedience, media that are now as powerful, risky and potentially world-changing as protests and rallies were a generation before.Cyber activism has an incredible amount of potential because of the facilitated flow of information and elimination of traditional leadership focused around a few powerful individuals. Today, anyone can start a blog, Facebook group or petition; often, the origin or ownership of a particular cyber movement is almost irrelevant. Witness the incredible success of rallies against stringent immigration legislation that occurred across the country last year, with large contributions coming from the use of mySpace to attract English-speaking Latino American youth, and Spanish-language radio stations galvanizing many illegals and non-English speakers alike. At Brandeis, Facebook has been extremely successful in organizing large rallies and promoting activist events. During the election season, the Internet was widely used by political groups on campus to organize phone banking. This incredible democratization of resources and tools has put untold power into the hands of individuals. Anyone can initiate an event and spread details through the online connection networks. Unlike the traditional system, which required a lot of coordination on the part of certain figures, large numbers of people are mobilized and get involved without concrete direction.Internet campaigns are just as important as-and potentially more revolutionary than-traditional protests because they allow for digital manipulation which can potentially be seen by millions. The successful initiative by faculty and students to bring former President Jimmy Carter to Brandeis should remind us what even a few signatures can do to change policies. The Internet allows petitions previously unimaginable levels of success. For example, in 2006, Egyptian groups supporting the Palestinian Intifada recorded over 200,000 signatures in an attempt to shut down the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Perhaps most telling of the Internet's potential to recruit activists is the practice of "hacktivism," by which individuals hack sites or servers to spread their messages. Among this tactic's biggest success stories has been the almost yearly disabling of Chinese firewalls by prominent hacktivist groups such as hacktivisto, allowing Chinese citizens unrestricted Web access. Also noteworthy is "googlebombing," which manipulates through repetition the order of sites that the search engine lists when one "googles" a topic. For instance, searching for "failure" or "miserable failure" will bring about the official Web site of the President of the United State, due to some extensive finagling on the part of activist sites. Some might unfairly criticize today's activists for not taking the same risks as members of the peace movement or the civil-rights movement's leaders in the 1960s. But in many ways, the stakes are now even higher: Parts of the Patriot Act, for example, have facilitated government organization's, specifically the FBI's, ability to arrest activists for subversive cyber postings. In 2002, Sherman Austin, who owns the server for a popular anti-government Web site that linked to other sites, was arrested for hosting a homemade bomb recipe, despite the fact that Austin was not the author of this information, and that much more detailed information can be found in bookstores and libraries. Even more frighteningly, Austin was threatened into accepting a guilty plea, lest he be subject to up to 20 years imprisonment under "terrorism enhancement" clauses of the Patriot Act. Internet activism is neither faceless nor detached, and the punishment for disobedience of norms and laws is as real online as in the real world.Yet, despite such risks, cyber activism presents new avenues for the politically inclined to reach out to millions. On campus, we've experienced the success of the Internet as both a coordinator for traditional activism and a budding source of new net activism with radical potential. Certainly pundits are correct when they say the traditional march on Washington has lost currency. They shouldn't, however, mourn the loss. A new wave of student potential and activism has already exploded.
(12/05/06 5:00am)
Most weekend mornings, I'd much rather fork out a fiver than face the prospect of having to clean up my bowl of cereal-and I know I'm not alone. When I go out to brunch, the fact that someone prepared the food for me is almost as scrumptious as the food itself, particularly when my head's a-poundin'. Waltham is well-known for its ethnic restaurants, particularly on Moody Street, but when all you want is some old-fashioned diner eats, Main's the place to go. Believe it or not, this town's got places that can top IHOP any day of the week-including, most importantly, for weekend brunches and all their griddley goodness.And by the way, I eat vegetarian, so I can't tell you if the bacon's good.Arcadia Restaurant (837 Main St.)You know that saying, "You get what you pay for?" It's certainly true at Arcadia-but that's fine, when all you want is cheap. The dcor is minimalist at best (if you can even use a word like dcor for this place). From the tabletops to the waitresses to the food, there's nothing fancy about Arcadia.The only thing warm about my blueberry pancakes (three pretty sizable ones for $4.75) was the massive pat of butter that came with it. Granted, that could've been because I waited five minutes for a bottle of maple syrup before giving up and borrowing one from the neighboring table. Even at room temperature the flapjacks were soft, but the berries were far from juicy. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same type of pancakes in the frozen food section at Hannaford.The scrambled egg (80 cents) I ordered on the side was standard, except for the little bit of shell that came with it. Last I checked, you're not supposed to get the entire egg-just the insides. All in all, Arcadia's isn't exactly the best food in town, but the food is certainly dirt cheap.In a Pickle Breakfast & Lunch (655 Main St.)In a Pickle is the hippest diner in Waltham. None of the wait or kitchen staff could have been over 30 (although without an old woman serving the food, it didn't quite feel like a diner), and the menu was drawn on boards with colored chalk. Fortunately for the owners, the food is fantastic-but that means there's always a crowd, because the seating capacity is small.The selection is pretty standard: various kinds of pancakes, waffles and omelettes, in hefty portions. My veggie omelette ($6.25) came with five fillings, a pile of home fries and some toast. The potatoes were soft-maybe just a little undercooked-but after I doused them in ketchup it really didn't matter. And the English muffin that came with it-well, you can't screw something like that up. The cheese inside the omelette was somewhere in between gooey and liquidy, and after a few minutes that made the omelette start to fall apart a bit, but neither of these affected the taste, which was nothing short of delicious.All in all, I'd say that In a Pickle would be much more popular among Brandeis students if it weren't past that most impenetrable of barriers, Moody St. The food is superb (my friend who got a Belgian waffle exclaimed, "It's so much better than Usdan!"), and the atmosphere is fun and funky-nay, funkalicious Joseph's II Family Restaurant (805 Main St.)J2's, as I (and the owners) affectionately call it, has been my go-to place for weekend brunch all year. The menu is varied and large, and the portions are also sizable, considering the high(er) prices. The atmosphere is soothing, as if the restaurant was designed to accommodate bloodshot eyes-the restaurant is not brightly lit and not at all garish. It's usually crowded on the weekends, and you can always spot at least a couple of Brandeis students there.Unless you get a side, every order comes with multiple items. My "two eggs, home fries, and toast or a muffin" (I got an English muffin) cost a very respectable $4.35. With the 85-cent cheese on the eggs and the additional $1.95 blueberry pancakes, I was one bite away from not being able to finish. My only mistake was adding the cheese. It had started to congeal a little by the time I got my plate, as those processed slices are wont to do. But otherwise, the home fries were delicious (with some added salt and ketchup), and the pancakes, while not completely soft, were filled with some of the juiciest berries I've had in a while.Printed on the awning over the kitchen window are the words "creativity and quality"-quote marks included. While the former didn't apply to my order, for the most part, the latter certainly did.Dunkin' Donuts (859 Main St.)Well, this isn't a diner, but it's on Main, and it's definitely the cheapest breakfast in town-in all senses of the word. Service, as should be expected, was quite speedy. Also, as should be expected, it didn't exactly come with a smile. Not that I can blame them. Dunkin' is fast food, after all.The Egg & Cheese Sandwich on a bagel ($2.09) only had the bagel going for it. The cheese wasn't even completely melted by the microwaving the sandwich received. Furthermore, the premade egg "patty"-for lack of a better word-was not even warm, and I could taste its artificiality. Good thing the bagel was toasted beforehand, or else there would have been no heat at all.Given that "donut" is in the place's name, you'd expect these pastries to be delicious. Fortunately, my strawberry-frosted (79 cents) one was. Donuts are pretty standard fare-especially in Boston, which is to Dunkin' Dohnuts as New York is to hotdog stands-so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but it was still sweet and fruity.The VerdictAnd the winner is... In a Pickle! Or it would be, if it wasn't so far away. I'm so lazy in the morning, and even though the food is not quite as good, Joseph's II is closer and the prices are pretty much the same-and that's all I need to satisfy the rumbly in my tumbly.
(12/05/06 5:00am)
With the demolition of Ridgewood set to expel an additional 109 students onto the mean streets of Waltham next year, and with over 30 percent of the junior class studying abroad next semester, now is a good a time to look into off-campus housing. Not only will there be more students living off campus, but also many of the more desireable places to live are being taken now, as opposed to late February, when all those with bad housing lottery numbers scramble to search for apartments.Given the inevitable increase in students looking for homes off campus for next year, here are some things I wish I had known before moving off campus, in hopes that at least one person will benefit from my experiences.When push comes to shove, college students are lazy. That should be a no-brainer, but it's one thing to know something intuitively, and quite another to experience it every day. The bulk of upperclassmen live in Lower Campus, and because there are a lot more people concentrated there, many Villagers, Zivites and Ridgewoodians don't have much incentive to make the trek off campus-unless you offer them lots of free booze. Add that to the fact that you will often be too lazy to hike over to campus, and the result will be that you won't see on-campus friends as often as you'd like. All this even before the winter cold sets in! You also have to be able to deal with the added responsibilities that come with living off-campus. If you're too lazy or grossed out to clean the bathroom, it's going to stay disgusting. The same goes for the sink, the floor and everything else. In the dorms, you've got a CA to help mediate room and suitemate disagreements, but off campus, all you've got are your wits. Reverse psychology doesn't work on anyone older than fiv e, so telling people that you're done doing their dishes will only make the pile higher.As in any relationship, communication is key. In the landlord-tenant relationship, if you don't do the landlord's bidding-like pay the rent on time-he can make it so he is no longer your landlord, if he should so desire. The absolute worst a CA can do for not returning the Room Condition Report in a timely fashion is ask you for it again. It's also vital that you communicate frequently with your housemates. If the landlord tells one of you not to leave trash by the sidewalk before 8 p.m. Thursday or else you have to pay the city a $100 fine, make sure that you share that information with each other. Otherwise, you will all get stuck owing Waltham money that you could have spent on frivolities, like food.If you want to live off-campus with someone who will be studying abroad spring semester, it might be worthwhile to reconsider. Most people looking to sublet a house for the second semester are probably not undergrads, and while that isn't necessarily bad, it may not be as fun. In any event, you'll probably get too attached to the guys who are leaving, and the thought of replacing them will only make you mopey.
(08/29/06 4:00am)
With the first day of classes approaching quickly, a large percentage of the Brandeis community is pondering what it will wear and how it will express its personal style on the first day of class. And, we all know, there is a large percentage that is not. Whichever group includes you, you could probably benefit from the following tips; even the best of us comes to class in sweatpants and a beater in the winter when we feel like waking seven minutes before class starts, and the building is seven minutes away. This means (and I know, firsthand) that people come to class without taking a shower, changing their clothes or even brushing their teeth! There are, however, several preventive measures anyone can take to appear fashionable and put-together on those lazy winter Mondays (or any day of the week, for that matter). This is very practical advice since everyone on campus will be sleep-deprived, sick or hung-over at least one class day this year. As any true fashion fighter will tell you, these tiny obstacles should never lead to defeat. Instead, use them as motivation to help you create the perfect "I put no thought into this but still look great" outfit. First, a little coordination goes a long way. Since it doesn't take much cognitive processing to recognize that black and black go together, this is something anyone can do, if he or she remembers. One coordination law that should never be broken is the belt and shoes rule. This means both articles need to coordinate according to color and material: if you are wearing black leather dress shoes, a cloth belt is definitely not as appropriate a choice as a leather one. If you really want to wear the cloth belt or are in a big hurry, flip-flops are a great choice. Too cold for sandals? Fashion tennis shoes also go well with the cloth, or driving mocs with a casual brown leather. The possibilities are endless. If you coordinate, however, people will definitely notice (or, at least they will notice if you do not) and it will look like you selected an outfit rather than random pieces of clean (or dirty) laundry.Another rule, not related to clothing, is to maintain your hair. No matter what, bed head is the number one indicator of zero-effort. If you don't have time to take a shower and know that you can't fool anyone into believing that you did, wear a hat! Personally, I think girls look really cute in baseball caps-with short hair, long hair in a ponytail out the back, long hair behind the ears, curly hair, straight hair-any thing you do is helpful. And most guys know they can wear baseball caps all the time if they want. A great aspect of baseball caps is that there is virtually one for everyone: they come in all colors, with everything from sports teams to Rene Lacoste's lucky crocodile on their fronts. Even better news: if you coordinate your hat (baseball, bucket, fedora or any other style) with the rest of the outfit, no one will ever guess that you just woke up!Now, some advice for the first five days of class: don't overdo it. I know it's quite tempting to wear extravagant clothing to show just how much you care about learning, but you may be setting yourself up for disaster. You don't want to be the student whose outfit everyone notices and judges every day, especially in the winter when you want to get sloppy or informal. Wearing a pair of nice jeans and a button-down or polo is a perfect way to start off the school year. This fall's trends are probably the best I've seen in a while. For men, it's duffel coats, plaid, and oversized sunglasses. For women, the trends include black, gold and red accessories and accents. From bold jewelry to sexy stiletto pumps, this fall is all about being over the top; but as I said before, be wise. One way to be smart about trendy fall clothing is to display only one trend at a time. Similar to the old rule about not flashing too many designer names at once, wearing too many trends is distracting and a little trashy. The final suggestion is not to let yourself become stressed about what you wear to class, ever. The truth is, no one will ever remember, unless you come to class naked or something equally absurd. If you are trying to catch the eye of some cute guy or girl or professor, know that clothing is emotional. Especially true of men, most people will notice a person who dresses with confidence rather than with Chanel. If you just take a deep breath and a minute to pick out something that looks good and feels great, you will be all set for the entire year.
(05/23/06 4:00am)
It is difficult keeping up with Tony Kushner. A quick-witted and fast-paced speaker, Kushner is widely acknowledged as one of the most prestigious contemporary American playwrights, known best for his Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, and his Academy Award-nominated screenplay for the film Munich.The University's decision to present Kushner with an honorary degree this year generated widespread media attention and criticism from Zionist student groups and outside organizations, who say Kushner called Israel's founding "a mistake." They say former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, the University's namesake and a major American Zionist figure, would not have approved.Kushner spoke at the Spingold Theater Sunday afternoon, entertaining graduates and their guests at the creative arts graduation ceremony and frequently throwing them into fits of hysterics."If you've been reading the papers, you know I was not invited here because of my political opinions, but my art," he said, to applause. "I always make art about my opinions, which is not to say that my art merely conveys my opinions. . It conveys my opinions, and also my qualms about my opinions, and also my opinions about my qualms."He warned that those who "are here today hoping or praying I'm going to address specifically the issues that have engendered the controversy that has trailed me over the past several months and long last has taught me to be cranky as a wet cat on your doorstep," would be disappointed not to hear him share his political views.Instead, Kushner talked about jobs. "Employment possibilities for creative arts majors are always a good subject to generate calamity," he said. "You're all young, so you don't really need nice, clean apartments or food."A self-described "lazy, shy loudmouth with manners," Kushner said he loves graduation ceremonies, because they celebrate summer, freedom and intelligence. "Graduations are about the conclusion of work, and I, who hate doing work . never feel more like celebrating than when work is done."Art, Kushner said, makes people uncomfortable, because of the truth it reveals. "The truths we tell as artists can cause controversy," he said. "I stand here a controversial artist, and is that a good thing or a bad thing? Something you want to be, or something you try to avoid in coming?"People are afraid of art, "even of works by Palestinian children," he said, referring to the exhibit of drawings by Palestinian children the University removed from the Goldfarb Library last month.Kushner encouraged graduates to "make trouble," be courageous in their work and embrace controversy as an inextricable component of art.He said artists must scandalize and shock the audience with controversy. In his own work, Kushner is known for continually challenging America's notions of religion, sex, politics and disease.Genuine shock strips individuals bare and makes them tingle, Kushner said."The artist should aspire to be what Emerson aspired to be: a remaker of what man had made, a renouncer of lies, a restorer of truth and good," he said.He warned the graduates not to allow fierce ambition or desire for fame-the "I'm-gonna-live-forever" type of fame-to consume them."You don't need to live forever, which is a good thing, because you aren't going to," he saidAmbition must humble itself enough in order for the artist to contribute, he said. If not, "then who are you?" he asked. "Hollow, an apparition, George W. Bush."Kushner ended with a quote from one of his favorite poets, Stanley Kunitz, a poet in residence at Brandeis in 1958, who passed away last week at the age of 100 (see obituary, page 2), to illustrate his point: "Immortality is not anything I lose sleep over."Kushner said his art depends on "an astonishing faith in my audience's attention span." Audience members agreed that his talk required tremendous focus on their part."He speaks 100 miles a minute. I'm exhausted," one parent joked following the address.
(03/28/06 5:00am)
Manginah's spring show Sunday night in Slosberg Recital Hall featured a variety of Israeli pop and traditional Jewish melodies, complimented by the all-American Starving Artists. Whenever Manginah's style became repetitive, Starving Artists would step in, reviving the momentum of the evening, making it a memorable performance.The opening, "Tutim," was reminiscent of the strawberries growing during the spring, with a song rolling around at an appropriately lazy pace. The season's lassitude became apparent here, as Liat Rudberg '09 sang verse after verse in Hebrew.An exceptionally strong beat and poignant meaning filled the Yalla Bye piece, performed by Assaf Ben-Atar '07. The lyrics were hysterical; translated into English, he started off peacefully describing, "In the evening at my sister's/ On the white porch/ She told me in detail" and in the fourth line sang "how the son of a bitch left," eliciting hysterical laughter from the audience. The song then described how once the relationship was over, it was not worth trying to pursue the boy, advising to move on instead and say "Yalla Bye." This was one of the most powerful songs, as it contained a relatable story line coupled with a melody that left one humming leaving Slosberg.The finale, Casara Nemes' '08 rendition of "Soulmate" had the whole audience clapping along. It was well received, and stood out from the rest of the set, as it was one of the only English songs sung by Manginah. Starving Artists' two-set, four-song performance added variety to the evening, and was classic Americana, making the production stronger as a whole. Their only shortcoming came during The Beatles' "Oh, Darling!" with Julie Albert '08 as the soloist. Albert's rendition of the piece was wonderful, with her strong voice belting out the chorus and filling the hall, but as an often repeated choice of song, it demonstrated a lack of originality.The energy and enthusiasm in both groups was top-notch and contagious, quickly passing through the audience. Josh Mervis '08 displayed such high physical and mental energy that it would have been impossible to guess that 30 minutes before the concert, he was singing his last of five performances in four days as Officer Lockstock in Urinetown, demonstrating a true dedication to the arts.Manginah's large following filled Slosberg Recital Hall, and encompassed some who understood the songs in Hebrew completely fluently and some who knew no Hebrew at all. Through the emotion of the singers, it was easy for audience members to close their eyes and fall into the emotional quality of the music regardless of whether or not they could understand the words.Editor's Note: Assaf Ben-Atar is technology assistant for the Justice.
(03/14/06 5:00am)
"I'm spelling so bad," a student murmured in my fiction class last week, as we were filling out mid-term professor evaluations. "This reflects so badly," she said."Next week we'll have a spelling test," another student joked. These words came from Brandeis students sitting in a class meant to train them to be good writers. However, the fact that they could not confidently hand-write a mundane teacher evaluation does not call into question their ability to be good writers. In this generation, spelling has become a matter of simply clicking the "spell-check" button. The secret that many students are not good spellers is revealed by in-class essays and weak moments when students forget to automatically spell-check their work.Something remarkable has happened to our culture of spelling. In elementary school, we spent so much time studying our weekly words for Friday's tests and our teachers promised we would never forget how to spell them. The aim was to be master spellers by high school. But while many students wrote their first essays in elementary school by hand, lots of people today do not even keep hand-written journals. The only thing people need to do today in order to spell well is to find the underlined words on their computer document.Like any skill, if the ability to spell is not used, it will be lost. Our generation grew up alongside the growth of home computers, and today's dependence on word processing programs, especially the magical "auto correct" option most word processors come with, has caused our generation to unlearn how to spell.It is important to engage actively in tasks if you want to remember how to do them. The difference between pressing "spell check" and struggling to find the word in the dictionary before copying it down is the same difference between skimming a textbook once through and taking careful notes on the reading. In both cases, students in the first scenario learn more in the long run.When spell-checking a word electronically, I base my choice of the correct spelling on word recognition; this method does not teach me how to spell the word. I spend so little effort in trying to correct my mistake that I have even forgotten what the misspelled word was. On the contrary, there is no Spanish spell checker on my computer, so that when writing in Spanish, I have to look up the spelling the annoying, traditional way. After one or two times of looking up the word and recreating it through physically typing it myself, I do not make the same mistake again.A major fear of mine is writing an e-mail to a professor and forgetting to spell-check it. Since Webmail does not underscore misspelled words, and I am almost out of the habit of actively recognizing spelling errors, I always have to remember to press "spell check." I have written e-mails, even very recently, which had spelling errors, but which I forgot to correct until just after pressing send. Incorrect spelling looks extremely unprofessional.Let's not kid-few of us can spell everything correctly on the first try, but once we spell-check, we all have an equal opportunity not to look foolish. This just makes mistakes even more embarrassing. But spelling errors with professors can elicit more than shame; they can be harmful to a grade. I dread in-class essays most, which is odd because so much less is expected on these exams since we usually are expected to write whatever comes to our heads in order to beat the clock. Before such exams, I have often heard the question "does spelling count?" and a response of "yes" can be quite unnerving. Hand-held spell-check machines do exist, but there isn't time to pause on these exams to look up a problem word. As is the case in e-mail, these spelling errors look extremely unprofessional, and such errors suggest sloppiness, which can negatively affect the grade.For the most part, bad spellers are hidden under the blanket of spell-checking tools, but from personal experience, I know that when I am writing by hand, I become nervous about presenting inadequately spelled work. While it is definitely more efficient to be a good speller, as long as students can get their hands on a spell-check program, and as long as they remember to use it as diligently as they remember to use deodorant in the morning, there will be no stink-stains on their writing.
(02/14/06 5:00am)
DestroyerDestroyer's Rubies on Merge RecordsAForget The New Pornographers' combing of the power-pop tradition; Dan Bejar, "the other guy" from that Vancouver super-group, has waded in its underbelly for a decade now. Where the former revels in Beach Boys sunshine and soaring Big Star harmonics, Destroyer, Bejar's primary occupation, mines with abandon pop's oft-forgotten corridors. His reference points speak to this: Hall and Oates-style yacht rock, glam rock during its idiosyncratic younger years, Bob Dylan's stream-of-consciousness street poetry following his electric heyday. Bejar is as self-referential as he is embracing of those heroes, ostensibly straddling the line between post-modernist and rock classicist like no contemporary indie rocker. But it'd be unfairly simplistic to call Destroyer's Rubies, the band's seventh album, a mere hybrid of David Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Dylan's New Morning. Even so, Bejar's songcraft--a self-described "European blues" riddled with tongue-in-cheek curses clashed against literary ramblings, seamlessly inserted lyrics from a host of influences, and allusions to his own carefully-wrought mythology--simply begs to be deconstructed. It should be obvious, then, that the 10-song disc is a career highlight; Rubies is a treasure chest, distilling Destroyer's finest moments into perhaps the best expression of its sound to date.That sound should be fairly familiar. "Your Blood" shimmies with a lazy, bohemian swagger, as though someone replaced "Like a Rolling Stone's" honky-tonk with Mick Ronson guitars and winks at Albert Camus, all while the typically nasal Bejar sings hypnotically, but largely without cadence. "A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point" plays similar games, referencing the Gospel of Luke only moments before lifting a line from Van Morrison's "Have I Told You Lately."With allusions to the Smiths, R.E.M., Ezra Pound and countless others, Rubies is as much a musicologist's delight as it is an English major's. But the best lyrics are Bejar's own: In "Looter's Follies," he begs, "Why can't you see that a life in arts and a life of mimicry is the same thing?"Rubies drives that very point home; even Bejar's notorious iconoclasm is illusory. In Bejar's world, rock 'n' roll is an open source and he understands that the genre has always profited more from idolatry than innovation. The band's name has always confounded listeners, but never before Rubies has its meaning been so abundantly clear: If rock 'n' roll is to survive, its disciples must never revere, only destroy.-Jonathan Fischer
(01/24/06 5:00am)
Ignore her indie pedigree: Chan Marshall has always been a soul singer. That she's opened for Liz Phair, recorded with members of Sonic Youth and Dirty Three (not to mention Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl) and made a highly acclaimed career out of her unsettling yet seductive brand of indie folk is negligible-Marshall, the voice behind Cat Power, has always captured a husky, cigarette-stained sensuality that is unique and unmatched among her peers. While always compelling, her work never quite seemed comfortable until now. The Greatest corrects this dichotomy, resulting in her best album to date. It pegs a familiar aesthetic-of smoky nightclubs and dusty brass instruments, with a narrator mired in sorrow and sympathy-invoking most notably Dusty Springfield's 1969 magnum opus Dusty in Memphis.Like the White Lady of Soul herself, Marshall recorded The Greatest in Memphis, assembling a band of seasoned studio players including Al Green-collaborator and guitarist Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, his brother Leroy (bass) and drummer Steve Potts, of Booker T. and the MGs. The band holed up with producer Stuart Sikes in Ardent Studios-which lists Big Star, Isaac Hayes, Led Zeppelin, The Replacements, Bob Dylan, Al Green himself and myriad others among its alumni-and recorded this 12-song exultation of Southern loss, heartbreak, redemption and salvation. For the famously introverted Marshall, it's unexpectedly confident. At least in sound, it rarely wallows in the despair of past releases.The vivid and balladic "The Greatest" begins the album with the sort of lonely piano line familiar to Cat Power fans, but is soon awash in distant guitar twangs and gorgeous string swells. "In came the rush of the flood," she sings, "stars at night turned you to dust," her lyrics telling of an aspiring boxer with all her usual poignancy.With its lazy trumpet and minimal piano melody, "Lived in Bars" begins just as simply, but by the time it hits its coda, it becomes the stuff of bustling jazz clubs on cold nights and of fond memories rekindled through bourbon-soaked soul. Moments like this, so abundant through The Greatest, will render tiresome any questions of the relevance of a classic-sounding soul record in 2006. This is far from pastiche-there may not be a more heartfelt album released this year.
